LIES I HAVE TOLD: VENUS, IF YOU WILL

In the course of my time-traveling research into classical sculpture, I discovered that the Venus De Milo originally had flailing leather tentacles instead of carved marble arms. An intricate mechanism housed in her torso made the leather tentacles whip about and lash all those in her immediate vicinity, usually criminals suffering punishment for their crimes; far from being an artistic piece, her original raison d’etre was purely punitive. However, when I broke into the Louvre and reattached a modern-day tentacle equivalency, I was arrested and sentenced to prison for so-called “vandalism.” In a perfect world, I’d have been whipped relentlessly by the Venus de Milo herself instead of spending 30 days in lockup. Where’s the justice in that?